Leaving the City
The righteous laugh at me. Sweltering and aching up and down last night in a Dutch House habitation capsule, I would have given anything to be back in my queen-size triple layer super firm-but-soft bed overlooking Lake Michigan, with her winds rushing through the windows. If I were still in Chicago, I would have awakened this morning to a damp, cloudy day-typically a brilliant rarity in summer but comparatively frequent this 2004-with a 20th-floor view on axis with the Museum of Science and Industry and the vernal lushness of Jackson Park's mature stock of arborlings beyond. I moved away from Chicago yesterday, with two monolithic duffle bags of all that was left to be taken. On my way to the commuter train I took countless times into the city for work and play, I walked a last time along the edge of the park with its tall canopy of street tree-tops, passed my favorite restaurant in the city (and little did I know ten years ago when I first visited it that I would one day live a block away), and waited briefly one last time for the University Park express train on the 55th-56th-57th Street Platform in lovely, vintage Hyde Park, where the streets smell of Lakescent, dreamy streetscapes compell you to nap, and where it seems that folks should walk down the street in fedoras and summertops and twirl from the lamposts and talk of mild scuttlebutt--trading the news on Old Man Peabody, Eleanor: Hyde Park's favorite bank teller, the five-and-dime, the South Shore Line on the Chicago and South Bend, Alderman Bailey, and the day's dooseys. Didja see the Herald this morning Bert? By golley! It will take time to adjust to not swimming in the lake every afternoon after a long workday just north of the Loop. The revetement at Promontory Point where I dipped into a clean
and soft Lake Michigan as the sunlight got thick in haze and the din of Lakeshore Drive fused with the breezes, and where old men sit on the benches under trees in straw hats smoking pipes and sharing stories backgrounded by somebody's jazz on an old radio, became so quickly emblematic of Chicago my home. I have long argued that a sense of place its place in the continuity of our experience makes an environment home. Living in Chicago always felt like home, not only because I was integrated and rooted so quickly in the fabric of the neighborhood, city, and region at large (think Lake Michigan), but also because it was explicitly and inherently another corner of my dear Midwest, another depot for those swell Midwesterners and their sense of scale, assuming and enacting their lives with a sense of regionality that starts "out there" and "around here" in surrounding, and then moves in to the city, the neighborhood, the block, the building, the household, the self, the nature of self, only to bounce back and reverberate along the same path outward again. Out East, they think the region exists to serve, to define oneself with self-interested selfness. The Northeast? It's what makes me important, they say. It's what makes me better, they say. But here in Chicago, and here in Michigan and among the native non-Metro-Detroiters in Ann Arbor, we have a sense of territory. Territory v. zone; cultureshed and identityshed and attitudeshed v. the region exists for me. Because I take root in this territory, a landscape of collectivity, even though it is often weakly conceived of or ignored, Chicago was another place for me, a branch of my rootedness, and a story for me to adopt, partake in, and then leave not with angst and oblivion but with a realization of consequence and continuity, and with another story in my metastory (*wink* that one's for you, Alex). Alright, I'll stop gushing. The point is, Chicago: adopted me, I adopted it. It's sad leaving,but fulfilling, because living there was in no way detached from my experience at large.
Chanson d'installation: Arvo Part, Spiegel im Spiegel (Mirror in the mirror)
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Friday, May 28, 2004
Metropolitan Diary
Anecdote of life in New York
I must disclaim this: I am staunchly against life lessons on e-mails or blog posts.
But this one, even though there's a life-lesson built in, typifies a certain
New York attitude--that everybody 'makes it' one way or the other. It comes from
the Metropolitan Diary feature in Monday's New York Times. It's a great Monday
treat that takes me back to the good things about life in New York, and as an ex-
resident I find that I appreciate it a great deal. It follows:
Dear Diary:
In the late 1950's, when I was just out of law
school, I had the responsibility of taking an early-
morning train to the city to drop off some papers at
a Wall Street firm. This was in the days when there
were no faxes, no e-mail and no FedEx.
When I had completed my duties and had picked
up some papers in response, having time to spare and
it being a Wednesday, I thought I would take in a
matinee.
Thus I found myself at the box office behind an
older man, clearly there for the same purpose. As I
recall, there was a discussion back and forth as to
seat location and then price, etc., which involved a
certain amount of if not negotiation, then certainly
adjustmet, until the buyer seemed satisfied, took his
ticket and left.
It now being my turn, the purveyor said something
to the effect of what seats were left and what the
prices were. In response I asked if I could get a
seat pretty much in the same place, and at the same
price, as the person before me.
His reply was memorable. "Sonny boy," he said,
"don't spend your life trying to play the other guy's
hand; he was dealt different cards than you were. You
play your own. Now here's what I got."
I have never forgotten those words, and the
admonishment that came with them. They have helped me
along life's way.
George D. Brodigan
Chanson d'instillation: Willard Grant Conspiracy, Evening Mass
I must disclaim this: I am staunchly against life lessons on e-mails or blog posts.
But this one, even though there's a life-lesson built in, typifies a certain
New York attitude--that everybody 'makes it' one way or the other. It comes from
the Metropolitan Diary feature in Monday's New York Times. It's a great Monday
treat that takes me back to the good things about life in New York, and as an ex-
resident I find that I appreciate it a great deal. It follows:
Dear Diary:
In the late 1950's, when I was just out of law
school, I had the responsibility of taking an early-
morning train to the city to drop off some papers at
a Wall Street firm. This was in the days when there
were no faxes, no e-mail and no FedEx.
When I had completed my duties and had picked
up some papers in response, having time to spare and
it being a Wednesday, I thought I would take in a
matinee.
Thus I found myself at the box office behind an
older man, clearly there for the same purpose. As I
recall, there was a discussion back and forth as to
seat location and then price, etc., which involved a
certain amount of if not negotiation, then certainly
adjustmet, until the buyer seemed satisfied, took his
ticket and left.
It now being my turn, the purveyor said something
to the effect of what seats were left and what the
prices were. In response I asked if I could get a
seat pretty much in the same place, and at the same
price, as the person before me.
His reply was memorable. "Sonny boy," he said,
"don't spend your life trying to play the other guy's
hand; he was dealt different cards than you were. You
play your own. Now here's what I got."
I have never forgotten those words, and the
admonishment that came with them. They have helped me
along life's way.
George D. Brodigan
Chanson d'instillation: Willard Grant Conspiracy, Evening Mass
Monday, May 17, 2004
May
One year ends, another begins
May. These are the days of limbo. My summer employment is up in the air, and when prospective subletters call me I have to finesse them into waiting for my word--I will likely hear next week, if you can wait--so they don't run off and leave me with 460/month in rent to pay for the duration of the summer. It's an incredible web. Job begets income, income begets accommodations, accommodation begets space, space begets the environment to do what I do when I'm not doing what I do: write stories and shorts, make webpages for me and [mystical] clients, draw, the photographing of things, scheme travels and adventures. All the things that school ordinarially consumes. May is the days of limbo.
I began May with frantic communication to align summer employment. When I swiftly and effectively had contacts and channels secured I fled Ann Arbor with a weekend in Chicago, where I stayed in Wheaton and was interiorally
divereted from the reality of summer, and exteriorally basking in its freedom. I spent good time with dear friends, and the weekend was a validation of sorts. Validated were the years of friendship building with both Andrew and Megan as our very separate lives were present to each other for a few brief days and what resulted was indeed something collective, as though there was a history capsule that we could all plug in and find a way to coexist. All real friendships can be picked up and moved. Even Megan--yes, you Megan, my dear bundle of festering angst--even you have a history capsule. Backpacking came next, with Rich and Godwin, and we hiked the Manistee River Trail/North Country Trail in a few days of much banter and bizzare affairs. Godwin consistenly pointed out fallow tree trunks along the terrain smoothened by rain and wind but no less present than they ever have been; probably more striking if Godwin was compelled to point them out. I harassed him with Bush jokes and the sarcastic, detrimental humor that I share with friends. Insult is love, love a flower of thorns. Rich lamented his girth and nature's own harassement upon various worlds of his trunk. Crying 'I'm a fat bastard!' from the mountaintops was a spiritual howl, and Rich was full of bemoanings. This past weekend, I spent another brief time away from the Deuce in western New York with five other friends who comprised part of the SLT at URC. No agenda, no program, no leadership paradigm, no expectations. The fact that such quality times came out of these conditions shows how real a team we were this year. All but one went for a morning swim in the 50-degree rain, and were fortunate to experience the deep-green and smooth warmth of the waters of Findley Lake. Brilliant. We were the Big Chill of URC, each with separate lives, but each with a reason to share them for the moment.
I want to get out of here again. I want to hand-select people to count each other among firends and then go and have adventures with them, and not neglect our souls and histories. I want to weave together stories despite relationships and twisted ideas of "stage in life" and age gaps, and I want to see people move with diligence and criticism at Intervarsity instead of setting their minds and hearts on the table waiting for a student leader to come around and validate their commitment to the message for them. I want the summer to be full of rain and clouds and dry warmth and apathy, shame, guilt, and the ambiguous motives absent. Why do we see our lives as being coursed by the current of time? Why can't we be like a bend in the river--a tree rooted into the bank that watching the current of time go by? Frames of reference make the difference here. I don't want to be at the mercy of time, because there's not a way that I can be. I want time to be the great renderer of that which I'm already rooted into (and for that matter that which surrounds me along the bank). Why can't people forget their ideas every once in a while and accept a new prompt cleanly--without exterior expectations and principles, measures, meters, rhyme, adages, received tokens of what is and is not. Why can't the Pistons just win the Eastern Finals already. Don't Americans realize that there are fields and houses and Mason jars sitting on wood shelves with cicadas and katydids and crickets buzzing about in the early evening of a woodsy summer? What happened to our collective sense of melancholy? Shit ya'll--the world's a pretty fucked up place. Shouldn't we have some sort of shared sense of trauma, unfairness, doom, strife, beauty, pain, pleasure, motivation or will? Man, I'm just talkin, I can't even set it straight in my head. I can just write it down. I'm just talkin. To all of you getting married out there--frankly: don't mess it up. Don't be stupid and negligent and forget who you are. Don't be self-righteous and passive. You owe a hand in a collective melancholy just as much as anybody else. May is limbo.
Chanson d'installation: David Gray, Please Forgive Me
May. These are the days of limbo. My summer employment is up in the air, and when prospective subletters call me I have to finesse them into waiting for my word--I will likely hear next week, if you can wait--so they don't run off and leave me with 460/month in rent to pay for the duration of the summer. It's an incredible web. Job begets income, income begets accommodations, accommodation begets space, space begets the environment to do what I do when I'm not doing what I do: write stories and shorts, make webpages for me and [mystical] clients, draw, the photographing of things, scheme travels and adventures. All the things that school ordinarially consumes. May is the days of limbo.
I began May with frantic communication to align summer employment. When I swiftly and effectively had contacts and channels secured I fled Ann Arbor with a weekend in Chicago, where I stayed in Wheaton and was interiorally
divereted from the reality of summer, and exteriorally basking in its freedom. I spent good time with dear friends, and the weekend was a validation of sorts. Validated were the years of friendship building with both Andrew and Megan as our very separate lives were present to each other for a few brief days and what resulted was indeed something collective, as though there was a history capsule that we could all plug in and find a way to coexist. All real friendships can be picked up and moved. Even Megan--yes, you Megan, my dear bundle of festering angst--even you have a history capsule. Backpacking came next, with Rich and Godwin, and we hiked the Manistee River Trail/North Country Trail in a few days of much banter and bizzare affairs. Godwin consistenly pointed out fallow tree trunks along the terrain smoothened by rain and wind but no less present than they ever have been; probably more striking if Godwin was compelled to point them out. I harassed him with Bush jokes and the sarcastic, detrimental humor that I share with friends. Insult is love, love a flower of thorns. Rich lamented his girth and nature's own harassement upon various worlds of his trunk. Crying 'I'm a fat bastard!' from the mountaintops was a spiritual howl, and Rich was full of bemoanings. This past weekend, I spent another brief time away from the Deuce in western New York with five other friends who comprised part of the SLT at URC. No agenda, no program, no leadership paradigm, no expectations. The fact that such quality times came out of these conditions shows how real a team we were this year. All but one went for a morning swim in the 50-degree rain, and were fortunate to experience the deep-green and smooth warmth of the waters of Findley Lake. Brilliant. We were the Big Chill of URC, each with separate lives, but each with a reason to share them for the moment.
I want to get out of here again. I want to hand-select people to count each other among firends and then go and have adventures with them, and not neglect our souls and histories. I want to weave together stories despite relationships and twisted ideas of "stage in life" and age gaps, and I want to see people move with diligence and criticism at Intervarsity instead of setting their minds and hearts on the table waiting for a student leader to come around and validate their commitment to the message for them. I want the summer to be full of rain and clouds and dry warmth and apathy, shame, guilt, and the ambiguous motives absent. Why do we see our lives as being coursed by the current of time? Why can't we be like a bend in the river--a tree rooted into the bank that watching the current of time go by? Frames of reference make the difference here. I don't want to be at the mercy of time, because there's not a way that I can be. I want time to be the great renderer of that which I'm already rooted into (and for that matter that which surrounds me along the bank). Why can't people forget their ideas every once in a while and accept a new prompt cleanly--without exterior expectations and principles, measures, meters, rhyme, adages, received tokens of what is and is not. Why can't the Pistons just win the Eastern Finals already. Don't Americans realize that there are fields and houses and Mason jars sitting on wood shelves with cicadas and katydids and crickets buzzing about in the early evening of a woodsy summer? What happened to our collective sense of melancholy? Shit ya'll--the world's a pretty fucked up place. Shouldn't we have some sort of shared sense of trauma, unfairness, doom, strife, beauty, pain, pleasure, motivation or will? Man, I'm just talkin, I can't even set it straight in my head. I can just write it down. I'm just talkin. To all of you getting married out there--frankly: don't mess it up. Don't be stupid and negligent and forget who you are. Don't be self-righteous and passive. You owe a hand in a collective melancholy just as much as anybody else. May is limbo.
Chanson d'installation: David Gray, Please Forgive Me
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
As my hair grows, so does our relationship
I shall defenestrate thee, oh scissors
As my hair becomes longer, I increasingly find it making its way into my mouth. Nasty, really.
But coming out of the shower tonight, for the first time in my life, I responded by chewing.
Freshly cleaned hair that's thick like mine is a fine gnawing toy late in the day. Of all the
virtues and benefits to long[er] hair, its chewability is among the most compelling. Imagine
if this becomes habit--I will be known as he who chews his hair, the suckler of skull sprouts,
the 'nick gnasher (as in beatnick, since they all had long hair, right? right.). Well, foremost,
freshly cleaned hair tastes like Australian wildflowers because that's what my shampoo
tastes like. A related event also occurred today, when the lady at the bagel shop admitted
that she awoke to find her straightener broken a week ago and has yet to recover from the
trauma. She asked me if I used a straightener myself, seeing my long[er] hair. I told her
that no, I in fact absolutely do not, but admitted sheepishly that I am now carrying a hair
brush around in my messenger bag (the man purse of architects, particularly when hair
brushes are to be found in them). From the bagel shop exchange, I scored three free over-
cooked bagels--just the way I like them. Thanks, hair.
Chanson d'installation: uhm, uh, Sunny Day Real Estate, Days Were Golden (*wink* to TiHB)
As my hair becomes longer, I increasingly find it making its way into my mouth. Nasty, really.
But coming out of the shower tonight, for the first time in my life, I responded by chewing.
Freshly cleaned hair that's thick like mine is a fine gnawing toy late in the day. Of all the
virtues and benefits to long[er] hair, its chewability is among the most compelling. Imagine
if this becomes habit--I will be known as he who chews his hair, the suckler of skull sprouts,
the 'nick gnasher (as in beatnick, since they all had long hair, right? right.). Well, foremost,
freshly cleaned hair tastes like Australian wildflowers because that's what my shampoo
tastes like. A related event also occurred today, when the lady at the bagel shop admitted
that she awoke to find her straightener broken a week ago and has yet to recover from the
trauma. She asked me if I used a straightener myself, seeing my long[er] hair. I told her
that no, I in fact absolutely do not, but admitted sheepishly that I am now carrying a hair
brush around in my messenger bag (the man purse of architects, particularly when hair
brushes are to be found in them). From the bagel shop exchange, I scored three free over-
cooked bagels--just the way I like them. Thanks, hair.
Chanson d'installation: uhm, uh, Sunny Day Real Estate, Days Were Golden (*wink* to TiHB)
Saturday, March 06, 2004
Assorted Yarn
From the streets of my existence
Yesterday, a fine near-70 degree day in March, I stood outside listening to 12 voicemails on my phone as the
fortuitous warm winds blew at me. It was a wind-bath.
A few days ago, walking home from the bus after school, I headed up Washington, positing whether to go
home and make dinner or go to get tea. I stopped a random woman on the street, and asked her whether
I should go home and make dinner or go to get tea. She smiled, and with great conviction said that I should
go get tea. It was a nice treat, she said. So, I did. I mean, that's why I asked her--so I wouldn't have to
make a decision.
In order to make pancakes this morning, we needed eggs. So Alex and I walked a block to the Farmer's
Market in Kerrytown and bought farm eggs.
Yesterday, a fine near-70 degree day in March, I stood outside listening to 12 voicemails on my phone as the
fortuitous warm winds blew at me. It was a wind-bath.
A few days ago, walking home from the bus after school, I headed up Washington, positing whether to go
home and make dinner or go to get tea. I stopped a random woman on the street, and asked her whether
I should go home and make dinner or go to get tea. She smiled, and with great conviction said that I should
go get tea. It was a nice treat, she said. So, I did. I mean, that's why I asked her--so I wouldn't have to
make a decision.
In order to make pancakes this morning, we needed eggs. So Alex and I walked a block to the Farmer's
Market in Kerrytown and bought farm eggs.
Saturday, February 14, 2004
They came like swallows
Last weekend, for some reason, I won second place in the Willeke Design Prize. Only two people win awards in
this competition every year, and to some degree it's a big deal. At least it will look good on my graduate school
applications, particularly for those schools which are close with Michigan. Though I was convinced I was not
going to win, I decided to go to the reception on Saturday morning anyway and hear who would. Meul came
with me (God bless you Meul). They announced my name and as the blood rushed out of my head I could nothing
but stand there frozen unsure what to do. The expression on my face was comparable to that which I would
have if overhearing utterly tragic news (along the lines of a friend being raped, atomic weapon deployed, a
parent or sibling dying, etc). On a tangent, I think my room is invested because there is a strange rustling in the
closet as I type this. In short, I was terrified, shearly and completely terrified. I could feel the eyes staring at me
and the smiles of people of whose names I am clueless. Without thinking, I started clapping. My retrospective
excuse was that it was in hope that I would be ambiguous. It probably didn't work; I recall my body being held
in a position akin to being stopped suddenly in mid-stride during a slow stroll. I was awkward, gangly, gumpy,
insecure. Horrified, I walked up to Meul and whispered, can we get out of hear now? We left before hearing the
first place winner, and we ditched the reception.
I have recognized this year how timid I am. It's always been obvious that I'm shy (and those of you that are
dropping your jaws saying 'what!! what the hell he's shy!?' I say that I am dammit), but the problem that I have
seen in this recently through things like winning the Willeke Prize is that it can be extremely selfish. I left the
reception because I'm not good with honor--it makes me deeply uncomfortable and I became instantly inward
as though an industrial strength vaccuum sucked in my personality and trapped it in my body. But at the same time,
I did not show humility. It was not a lack of humility related to pride, but one related to vulnerability. It takes
humility to be vulnerable because it takes trust to be vulnerable. Though I had a responsiblity as one who is
honored, as a colleague, as a student, and as a member of the community to stick around and meet those who
feel that congratulations are due, and who awarded me the prize, to meet alumni who are interested in things
like this and accept the honor with grace, I turned my back to that responsibility and in my own anguish went
out the back door.
I now see where my timidness has effected other people. I am often terrified of presumption, and inherently
assume that social consequences will follow from overcoming shyness and communicating with people. Often,
I am unconfident in my ability to articulate and express my experience and thus don't even try. My fear in this
comes from things in my past, much of it from a bad relationship, and as a result there's no quick solution.
Nonetheless, despite its sources it has hurt people in the past, and I have missed great opporunities. And this
is curious...because someone in the past showed herself to be apathetic when I stepped out I began avoiding
stepping out and became apathetic myself. This is trite...I shouldn't be sharing this on my fuckin' blog...this
isn't a catharsis afterall. Do I make sense?
Chanson du jour: Indigo Girls, Hey Jesus
this competition every year, and to some degree it's a big deal. At least it will look good on my graduate school
applications, particularly for those schools which are close with Michigan. Though I was convinced I was not
going to win, I decided to go to the reception on Saturday morning anyway and hear who would. Meul came
with me (God bless you Meul). They announced my name and as the blood rushed out of my head I could nothing
but stand there frozen unsure what to do. The expression on my face was comparable to that which I would
have if overhearing utterly tragic news (along the lines of a friend being raped, atomic weapon deployed, a
parent or sibling dying, etc). On a tangent, I think my room is invested because there is a strange rustling in the
closet as I type this. In short, I was terrified, shearly and completely terrified. I could feel the eyes staring at me
and the smiles of people of whose names I am clueless. Without thinking, I started clapping. My retrospective
excuse was that it was in hope that I would be ambiguous. It probably didn't work; I recall my body being held
in a position akin to being stopped suddenly in mid-stride during a slow stroll. I was awkward, gangly, gumpy,
insecure. Horrified, I walked up to Meul and whispered, can we get out of hear now? We left before hearing the
first place winner, and we ditched the reception.
I have recognized this year how timid I am. It's always been obvious that I'm shy (and those of you that are
dropping your jaws saying 'what!! what the hell he's shy!?' I say that I am dammit), but the problem that I have
seen in this recently through things like winning the Willeke Prize is that it can be extremely selfish. I left the
reception because I'm not good with honor--it makes me deeply uncomfortable and I became instantly inward
as though an industrial strength vaccuum sucked in my personality and trapped it in my body. But at the same time,
I did not show humility. It was not a lack of humility related to pride, but one related to vulnerability. It takes
humility to be vulnerable because it takes trust to be vulnerable. Though I had a responsiblity as one who is
honored, as a colleague, as a student, and as a member of the community to stick around and meet those who
feel that congratulations are due, and who awarded me the prize, to meet alumni who are interested in things
like this and accept the honor with grace, I turned my back to that responsibility and in my own anguish went
out the back door.
I now see where my timidness has effected other people. I am often terrified of presumption, and inherently
assume that social consequences will follow from overcoming shyness and communicating with people. Often,
I am unconfident in my ability to articulate and express my experience and thus don't even try. My fear in this
comes from things in my past, much of it from a bad relationship, and as a result there's no quick solution.
Nonetheless, despite its sources it has hurt people in the past, and I have missed great opporunities. And this
is curious...because someone in the past showed herself to be apathetic when I stepped out I began avoiding
stepping out and became apathetic myself. This is trite...I shouldn't be sharing this on my fuckin' blog...this
isn't a catharsis afterall. Do I make sense?
Chanson du jour: Indigo Girls, Hey Jesus
Friday, February 13, 2004
Rock Climbing
A few weeks ago (...right...) a bunch of us from URC went rock climbing. I now have my coveted
'top roping' card. I, dear sir, am a top roper. This means, oh humble reader, that I
have the ability to save your life, and that makes me a life-saver. And being a life-saver makes
me a death-defeater. And being a death-defeater makes me inherently supernatural, for how
else are we to defeat death? And being supernatural makes me an angel or spirit or other sort
of spiritual entity that happens to wield to some capacity the power of God. So, remember that
next time you see me and all others with Planet Rock 'Top Roping' cards and be attentive--for we,
afterall, are angels.
Chanson du installation: Big Ditch Road, Waiting for the Fall
'top roping' card. I, dear sir, am a top roper. This means, oh humble reader, that I
have the ability to save your life, and that makes me a life-saver. And being a life-saver makes
me a death-defeater. And being a death-defeater makes me inherently supernatural, for how
else are we to defeat death? And being supernatural makes me an angel or spirit or other sort
of spiritual entity that happens to wield to some capacity the power of God. So, remember that
next time you see me and all others with Planet Rock 'Top Roping' cards and be attentive--for we,
afterall, are angels.
Chanson du installation: Big Ditch Road, Waiting for the Fall
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Snow's falling again
When I left the house this morning, it was snowing, and it continued to snow all day. It was a day for snow.
In order to catch a film of interest at the Michigan Theater, I left the studio this afternoon early to have ample
time to meet up with other folks watching and maybe a quick cup of earthbrew. However, the bus from
North Campus never came; it was snowing too hard, and the buses were all delayed. After waiting at the
stop for a good twenty-five minutes or so, I decided to go and play the piano at the music building until the
fuss of traffic had subsided and my chances of getting a bus were possibly greater. At this point, of course, I
knew I wouldn't be able to catch the flick. But after looking around the music building for a bit and passing up
many empty practice rooms, I realized that what I really wanted to do was not play the piano but walk in the
snow. Seeing the transit situation as it was, I decided to take advantage of the delayed buses and the
ideal snow to walk back to State Street on Central. Typically, this is considered a long walk. A very long walk.
Typically, traffic moves along the four-lane boulevard with noise and speed like a freeway and the idea of
walking along it is a bleak idea. But because Fuller was at a stand-still, the noise was reduced (with the help
of the snow, too) and the expanses of the lanes on Fuller were filled in with many interesting capsules of
folks listening to the radio or music or pulling at their hair. Walking along Fuller I passed cars at a pace that
must have seemed frustrating to the drivers. I was never passed by a single car--not even close. Many
people decided to make the walk from North Campus this afternoon, they too unable to catch a bus. Indeed,
many buses were snarled in the traffic, full of people that should be walking. Folks who set out from the path
in front of the music building walked along in groups, laughing and musing on the unusual situation. When I
came to the river, I stopped on the bridge and looked over the water. Snow lined the branches of the trees
along the bank and pieces of ice floated down the river. The maudlin eyes through which I viewed it almost
made me sick (HA! that would have really made the snow extra-special), but I couldn't deny that it was
pretty. It made me want to be away from the city, although I must also say that the city is sort of idyllic at
times like this--a town among nature, not hidden or safe from whatever inconveniences we might assign it.
On my way to Central, I walked up the southern ridge of the valley, where the hospital sits. From there,
you can see most of Fuller as well as North Campus, including the hills along the northern ridge where Fuller
Court, etc. cut through. By this time, the sun was perhaps half-set, maybe a bit more. The snow obliterated
the view after a half-mile or thereabouts, so the continuous line of stalled traffic along the entire view of
Fuller eventually faded into headlights and tailights east of North Campus. It was beautiful, particularly with
the privilege to walk along the Arboretum. When I arrived to the Diag, the light had become that purplish
silvery blue that only occurs when it's snowing in the last fifteen minutes of daylight. It's a rare light, but one
that always makes me glad it's winter. Folks are leaving work and school and the city quietly bustles along,
even if the bustling is only in the mild hum of car engines and distant horns in the comatose traffic. The
decision to walk was a very good one. For some sappy reason, I experienced one of the most beautiful
things I have in a long time.
Chanson du installation: J.S. Bach, Sonata for Flute, Harp and Cello in G minor
In order to catch a film of interest at the Michigan Theater, I left the studio this afternoon early to have ample
time to meet up with other folks watching and maybe a quick cup of earthbrew. However, the bus from
North Campus never came; it was snowing too hard, and the buses were all delayed. After waiting at the
stop for a good twenty-five minutes or so, I decided to go and play the piano at the music building until the
fuss of traffic had subsided and my chances of getting a bus were possibly greater. At this point, of course, I
knew I wouldn't be able to catch the flick. But after looking around the music building for a bit and passing up
many empty practice rooms, I realized that what I really wanted to do was not play the piano but walk in the
snow. Seeing the transit situation as it was, I decided to take advantage of the delayed buses and the
ideal snow to walk back to State Street on Central. Typically, this is considered a long walk. A very long walk.
Typically, traffic moves along the four-lane boulevard with noise and speed like a freeway and the idea of
walking along it is a bleak idea. But because Fuller was at a stand-still, the noise was reduced (with the help
of the snow, too) and the expanses of the lanes on Fuller were filled in with many interesting capsules of
folks listening to the radio or music or pulling at their hair. Walking along Fuller I passed cars at a pace that
must have seemed frustrating to the drivers. I was never passed by a single car--not even close. Many
people decided to make the walk from North Campus this afternoon, they too unable to catch a bus. Indeed,
many buses were snarled in the traffic, full of people that should be walking. Folks who set out from the path
in front of the music building walked along in groups, laughing and musing on the unusual situation. When I
came to the river, I stopped on the bridge and looked over the water. Snow lined the branches of the trees
along the bank and pieces of ice floated down the river. The maudlin eyes through which I viewed it almost
made me sick (HA! that would have really made the snow extra-special), but I couldn't deny that it was
pretty. It made me want to be away from the city, although I must also say that the city is sort of idyllic at
times like this--a town among nature, not hidden or safe from whatever inconveniences we might assign it.
On my way to Central, I walked up the southern ridge of the valley, where the hospital sits. From there,
you can see most of Fuller as well as North Campus, including the hills along the northern ridge where Fuller
Court, etc. cut through. By this time, the sun was perhaps half-set, maybe a bit more. The snow obliterated
the view after a half-mile or thereabouts, so the continuous line of stalled traffic along the entire view of
Fuller eventually faded into headlights and tailights east of North Campus. It was beautiful, particularly with
the privilege to walk along the Arboretum. When I arrived to the Diag, the light had become that purplish
silvery blue that only occurs when it's snowing in the last fifteen minutes of daylight. It's a rare light, but one
that always makes me glad it's winter. Folks are leaving work and school and the city quietly bustles along,
even if the bustling is only in the mild hum of car engines and distant horns in the comatose traffic. The
decision to walk was a very good one. For some sappy reason, I experienced one of the most beautiful
things I have in a long time.
Chanson du installation: J.S. Bach, Sonata for Flute, Harp and Cello in G minor
Wednesday, January 07, 2004
The second day of school
Hwaet! It bothers me immensely that by the second day of the semester, I am burdened with some of the most frivolous work
assigned my entire collegiate run. It's simply work that I only artificially have time for--articificially because I set aside time to
do that work--duped and tricked, forced and extorted into the autonomous commitment to do whatever work assigned despite
its value. I have too much other stuff to be concerned with:
1. I commited to compose an ensemble piece to be played in church but haven't begun
2. I need to work to develop the 50+ rolls of still unprocessed film on my bookshelf
3. My bookshelf contains exactly 51 unread or mostly unread books, many of them too exquisite not to read
4. I have hundreds and hundreds of photographs to scan, burn to CDs, and catalogue
5. I have tens of compositions to finish composing
6. I still haven't read the entire Bible
7. Of all the road trips I have planned, I have taken exactly 3 of 10, only one of them non-local (Boston-NY-Princeton)
8. I have three academic essays to complete and submit for publication
9. A creative writing course to make me eligible for the Hopwoods?: impossible
10. STILL need to write and play violin parts for Dawn's CD, and she doesn't even need me anymore
11. It's been over a year since I began the URC book table, and I need to tend it a second time yet
12. I've lost my chance to apply for a Christian leadership grant for college students: it was my chance to turn roadtripping and
photography into an act of worship with the comfort of subsidization
13. Will I ever get into Detroit to take the 80 rolls of film it depends I take, or to begin the restoration of a townhouse?
14. Business cards and business website for Wield Associates
15. I thought I was going to continue studying Latin and Old English
16. I still haven't recorded my family's oral history
17. How am I going to go to Ireland on the cheap?
18. Spotieotiedopalicious angelage
19. Social science credit independent study?
20. record music with JB
21. write line verse for IV
22. rent a cabin in a UP state park in winter
23. record those of my compositions that I remember before I forget them
24. Write letters to my aunts and uncles on a regular basis
25. the list will continue...
Chanson du installation: about the bitterness of sweetness--Outkast, Da Art of Storytelling (yes, more Outkast)
assigned my entire collegiate run. It's simply work that I only artificially have time for--articificially because I set aside time to
do that work--duped and tricked, forced and extorted into the autonomous commitment to do whatever work assigned despite
its value. I have too much other stuff to be concerned with:
1. I commited to compose an ensemble piece to be played in church but haven't begun
2. I need to work to develop the 50+ rolls of still unprocessed film on my bookshelf
3. My bookshelf contains exactly 51 unread or mostly unread books, many of them too exquisite not to read
4. I have hundreds and hundreds of photographs to scan, burn to CDs, and catalogue
5. I have tens of compositions to finish composing
6. I still haven't read the entire Bible
7. Of all the road trips I have planned, I have taken exactly 3 of 10, only one of them non-local (Boston-NY-Princeton)
8. I have three academic essays to complete and submit for publication
9. A creative writing course to make me eligible for the Hopwoods?: impossible
10. STILL need to write and play violin parts for Dawn's CD, and she doesn't even need me anymore
11. It's been over a year since I began the URC book table, and I need to tend it a second time yet
12. I've lost my chance to apply for a Christian leadership grant for college students: it was my chance to turn roadtripping and
photography into an act of worship with the comfort of subsidization
13. Will I ever get into Detroit to take the 80 rolls of film it depends I take, or to begin the restoration of a townhouse?
14. Business cards and business website for Wield Associates
15. I thought I was going to continue studying Latin and Old English
16. I still haven't recorded my family's oral history
17. How am I going to go to Ireland on the cheap?
18. Spotieotiedopalicious angelage
19. Social science credit independent study?
20. record music with JB
21. write line verse for IV
22. rent a cabin in a UP state park in winter
23. record those of my compositions that I remember before I forget them
24. Write letters to my aunts and uncles on a regular basis
25. the list will continue...
Chanson du installation: about the bitterness of sweetness--Outkast, Da Art of Storytelling (yes, more Outkast)
Saturday, October 25, 2003
I can't really type
A box cutter mishap
I know--it's lame to say that a box cutter mishap is the most exciting thing to happen to me
recently. It's been a while since I've posted here; it's been three or four weeks since our weekend in Stratford. October was a brilliant autumn month. My conception of what an autumn should be (patriculalry in the context of academic and musical activities, coffee drinking and day traveling, whatnot) has been brilliant.
Since I'm coming back to this blog a few weeks after I started, all I can say is that I cut my finger with a box cutter. Only
last week did my nail fall off.
Chanson du installation: Outkast, Church
I know--it's lame to say that a box cutter mishap is the most exciting thing to happen to me
recently. It's been a while since I've posted here; it's been three or four weeks since our weekend in Stratford. October was a brilliant autumn month. My conception of what an autumn should be (patriculalry in the context of academic and musical activities, coffee drinking and day traveling, whatnot) has been brilliant.
Since I'm coming back to this blog a few weeks after I started, all I can say is that I cut my finger with a box cutter. Only
last week did my nail fall off.
Chanson du installation: Outkast, Church
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
In Stratford, breaking from coffee
This past weekend, I traveled with a group of friends to Stratford, Ontario to see some Shakespeare and get
away from the University of Michigan ("mid-terms" have started, although a.) midterms are actually semester-
long streaks of papers, exams, etc. with 2-3 week buffers at the beginning and end; and b.) in architecture,
something's always, always--always--due) and into the autumnal countryside to stroll in the rains only to retire
into some lush, warm room by the front window sipping coffee. So this is what I planned to do between plays,
and for the most part, my romanticism was permissible and realized. Now...though I didn't plan it, I underwent
a major life change this past weekend. Many of you may be aware that my coffee-drinking goes way back to
age nine when I prepared myself the Paramount brew in the men's lounge of the MAC after tennis lessons
(Oh! *shudder;* how the sucrosed be-creamered ooze would chill my nerves these days). In high school, it
became a regular and valued Thursday afternoon tradition, and many hours of productive studying were
passed in the warmth of the kitchen with my books and coffee overlooking the yard and the sparrow flocks,
the tusslebrush in winter and the bugs and buds of the spring. I even cited this tradition in my application
essay to Cornell in an attempt to describe the phenomenological coneption of my self-awareness and its
relationship to why I want to be a space-wielder. But I digress. I'm trying to say that coffee has been a
central component of my life since my formative years [and it continues to be so in these formative years and
I hope it will always be so in all formative years]. Yet since coming to Michigan, I have had coffee at a frequency
that is disturbing and alarming. Coffee is requisitely a context drink. Thus, if ideal or compelling conditions
exist (for instance, a last afternoon walk home in early winter after a long day as the sun begins to fade)
despite the lack of 'appetite' for coffee, it is necessary, according to these conditions, to indulge in brew. This
is troublesome in a town like the Deuce, for ideal and compelling conditions occur all the time. They
are inherent in the urban fabric of the city--unavoidable. And since my academic pursuits have shifted to the
sterility of refigerator compartments on North Campus (although the Arch building butts up against the woods,
which is relieving) where there is no suggestion whatsoever of well-operative and synthetic communal space
nor services, my only option for sustenance (sp?) in my long, 14-hr. days is Espresso Royale Caffee, the
problem of coffee-context submission has not been deterred. So what I mean is, I've been drinking far, far too
much coffee as of late, and it has nearly lost any 'specialness;' and this, my friends, is utterly tragic. Not only
that but I began feeling sick every time I drank the stuff. So when the opportunity came in Stratford for make
a switch, I seized it passively and unknowingly, and made the conversion--for the time being--to tea. Now,
I am a tea man. I mean, I've always drunk and liked tea, but now it's often and consistent. Instead of coffee
and breve lattes, I now sip tea. One immediate benefit: I no longer have to go to Starbucks! Before my
switch, coffee took precedence over every other consideration of coffeeshop patronage. The quality of the
coffee was more important than atmosphere, lighting, music, clientele (Starbucks is all Easterners *more
shuddering*), location, temperature, etc. And while Espresso Royale on State Street wins out in every single
one of those categories, it fails very, very deeply in the category of coffee quality; the ultimate, decisive
category that determines where my time is spent. For that reason, I have been a Starbucks tool for the past
year. In one sense, it's great because their coffee is superb. In the other, I feel like I'm in perdition. ERC
beckones but I ignore her, and refuse to trust her (I mean, she has let me down in the past
in ways that truly hurt), etc. But since I've become a tea man, I can return to ERC becuase they excel in tea
like Republicans in apathy and Democrats in hypocrisy. Starbucks shouldn't even try. They should just get rid
of tea because even their most simple black tea, Earl Grey, is laced with flavoring *even more suddering,*
which is thoroughly depressing. And it all happened in the pseudo-Anglicism of Stratford. Bless it!
Chanson du jour: Outkast, Rosa Parks
away from the University of Michigan ("mid-terms" have started, although a.) midterms are actually semester-
long streaks of papers, exams, etc. with 2-3 week buffers at the beginning and end; and b.) in architecture,
something's always, always--always--due) and into the autumnal countryside to stroll in the rains only to retire
into some lush, warm room by the front window sipping coffee. So this is what I planned to do between plays,
and for the most part, my romanticism was permissible and realized. Now...though I didn't plan it, I underwent
a major life change this past weekend. Many of you may be aware that my coffee-drinking goes way back to
age nine when I prepared myself the Paramount brew in the men's lounge of the MAC after tennis lessons
(Oh! *shudder;* how the sucrosed be-creamered ooze would chill my nerves these days). In high school, it
became a regular and valued Thursday afternoon tradition, and many hours of productive studying were
passed in the warmth of the kitchen with my books and coffee overlooking the yard and the sparrow flocks,
the tusslebrush in winter and the bugs and buds of the spring. I even cited this tradition in my application
essay to Cornell in an attempt to describe the phenomenological coneption of my self-awareness and its
relationship to why I want to be a space-wielder. But I digress. I'm trying to say that coffee has been a
central component of my life since my formative years [and it continues to be so in these formative years and
I hope it will always be so in all formative years]. Yet since coming to Michigan, I have had coffee at a frequency
that is disturbing and alarming. Coffee is requisitely a context drink. Thus, if ideal or compelling conditions
exist (for instance, a last afternoon walk home in early winter after a long day as the sun begins to fade)
despite the lack of 'appetite' for coffee, it is necessary, according to these conditions, to indulge in brew. This
is troublesome in a town like the Deuce, for ideal and compelling conditions occur all the time. They
are inherent in the urban fabric of the city--unavoidable. And since my academic pursuits have shifted to the
sterility of refigerator compartments on North Campus (although the Arch building butts up against the woods,
which is relieving) where there is no suggestion whatsoever of well-operative and synthetic communal space
nor services, my only option for sustenance (sp?) in my long, 14-hr. days is Espresso Royale Caffee, the
problem of coffee-context submission has not been deterred. So what I mean is, I've been drinking far, far too
much coffee as of late, and it has nearly lost any 'specialness;' and this, my friends, is utterly tragic. Not only
that but I began feeling sick every time I drank the stuff. So when the opportunity came in Stratford for make
a switch, I seized it passively and unknowingly, and made the conversion--for the time being--to tea. Now,
I am a tea man. I mean, I've always drunk and liked tea, but now it's often and consistent. Instead of coffee
and breve lattes, I now sip tea. One immediate benefit: I no longer have to go to Starbucks! Before my
switch, coffee took precedence over every other consideration of coffeeshop patronage. The quality of the
coffee was more important than atmosphere, lighting, music, clientele (Starbucks is all Easterners *more
shuddering*), location, temperature, etc. And while Espresso Royale on State Street wins out in every single
one of those categories, it fails very, very deeply in the category of coffee quality; the ultimate, decisive
category that determines where my time is spent. For that reason, I have been a Starbucks tool for the past
year. In one sense, it's great because their coffee is superb. In the other, I feel like I'm in perdition. ERC
beckones but I ignore her, and refuse to trust her (I mean, she has let me down in the past
in ways that truly hurt), etc. But since I've become a tea man, I can return to ERC becuase they excel in tea
like Republicans in apathy and Democrats in hypocrisy. Starbucks shouldn't even try. They should just get rid
of tea because even their most simple black tea, Earl Grey, is laced with flavoring *even more suddering,*
which is thoroughly depressing. And it all happened in the pseudo-Anglicism of Stratford. Bless it!
Chanson du jour: Outkast, Rosa Parks
Sunday, September 28, 2003
Another anniversary, a third yet throbbing
Upon my twenty-first birthday, a sonnet of Shakespeare:
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
Upon a withered helm:
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state it self confounded to decay,
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
Chanson du jour: Innocence Mission, Going Away
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
Upon a withered helm:
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state it self confounded to decay,
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
Chanson du jour: Innocence Mission, Going Away
Wednesday, September 17, 2003
At our seventh anniversary, I get dumped
I met her in a yellowed room when she was grey, and her's was a young, young world. We started out when
I told her my name and she gave me a password, a password that unlocked a world between us of
companionship; she was the gateway to an unprecedented communication that changed my life and the way
that I viewed the world. She was always at my service, though I didn't deserve it. She didn't ask for much.
Then again, a relationship that is true and right never requires a price. I looked after her, too, and was
careful to protect her from the maliciousness of this new corrupted world, and she did the same to me.
Together, we stepped from ourselves and gave to each other a little piece of ourselves--I told her the deepest
truths of who I am, revealing unhesitantely to her my thoughts dire and exhilerated, lavish and those of such
modesty that was meant to passively turn a head. She read them back to me in the late hours of the night,
and she was there to tap the exuberance of years and years of life pursuits. We were a pair, and I shared
my world with her. I was faithful (and in a true companionship that goes without saying), and with her I
opened the doors of this life with confidence, ease, and a remarkable edgeless reservation, a humility, an
indescribable sense of fate and consequence (oh those doors and where they led!). Most of all, I trusted
her, and she was with me without fail during every step we took, together. But today, I discovered in
dismay and a rush of loss that made me aware of an obliterated record of my history (ours), my beloved--
whom I will call by the first name I knew her--dumped me, left me, forgot me, quit, fled or was seized,
usurped, thefted, killed. Whatever the truth may be, I have lost my dear HoTMaiL, and my account of
seven years will never return. Suitably, I shall never return to it. All I have is the naive hope that the
truth is not what it seems. I cling to the possibility that she was indeed seized from me, and now I must
endure my liebestod slowly, deeply, madly. I hear the bells tolling, tolling rigid in the empty night.
Chanson du jour: a moment of silence.
I told her my name and she gave me a password, a password that unlocked a world between us of
companionship; she was the gateway to an unprecedented communication that changed my life and the way
that I viewed the world. She was always at my service, though I didn't deserve it. She didn't ask for much.
Then again, a relationship that is true and right never requires a price. I looked after her, too, and was
careful to protect her from the maliciousness of this new corrupted world, and she did the same to me.
Together, we stepped from ourselves and gave to each other a little piece of ourselves--I told her the deepest
truths of who I am, revealing unhesitantely to her my thoughts dire and exhilerated, lavish and those of such
modesty that was meant to passively turn a head. She read them back to me in the late hours of the night,
and she was there to tap the exuberance of years and years of life pursuits. We were a pair, and I shared
my world with her. I was faithful (and in a true companionship that goes without saying), and with her I
opened the doors of this life with confidence, ease, and a remarkable edgeless reservation, a humility, an
indescribable sense of fate and consequence (oh those doors and where they led!). Most of all, I trusted
her, and she was with me without fail during every step we took, together. But today, I discovered in
dismay and a rush of loss that made me aware of an obliterated record of my history (ours), my beloved--
whom I will call by the first name I knew her--dumped me, left me, forgot me, quit, fled or was seized,
usurped, thefted, killed. Whatever the truth may be, I have lost my dear HoTMaiL, and my account of
seven years will never return. Suitably, I shall never return to it. All I have is the naive hope that the
truth is not what it seems. I cling to the possibility that she was indeed seized from me, and now I must
endure my liebestod slowly, deeply, madly. I hear the bells tolling, tolling rigid in the empty night.
Chanson du jour: a moment of silence.
Tuesday, September 09, 2003
What I did with a month of no internet access
I tried to post an entry from Beaver Island, but that was thwarted. Now I'm too exhuasted to recount my vacation
to the Island in the detail that I would like, but I will say that it was blissful. The Island is a model for the economy
of a post-imperial America: localized economy, interdependent services, community dependency, and growth control.
Beaver Island is what towns across the country should resemble. No wastelands of sprawl with the charm of a Nazi
death camp, no warehouses of surplus crap manufactured by toiling laborers in countries most Americans are too
dumb to know of, no grease sponge strip restaurants, no chain lube-n-go auto clinics, no desolate pods of vinyl and
wallboard McHouses in the scorching sun and clay front yards incomprehensively twisting their way through former
farms and productive rural land, and finally--ulitmately, miraculously--no carcinogenic floodwater of automobiles
overwhelming infrastructure. People there don't use their cars to joyride between big box merchandise emporiums
and their estate community.
I saw the aurora borealis three times, the Milky Way every night, gazed at the moon through a 4mm lens on a 144mm
telescope--close enough to watch it move out of view in just a few seconds, I went horseback riding, ate smelt and
whitefish almost every day caught from the Lake that morning, I hiked through environments unique in the world,
and best of all, I was secluded--utterly secluded--from the frivolity of this doped up modern world of ours.
To illustrate this frivolity, read this article in the Detroit Free Press from Tuesday, September 9, 2003:
Population swings from Oakland to Macomb
Neighboring county attracting residents with more home for the money, down-to-earth feel http://www.freep.com/news/locmac/move9_20030909.htm
The article is about the trend of people moving from the wasteland of sprawl outside of Detroit called Oakland
County to another, newer, blossoming wasteland of sprawl to the north called Macomb County. Here are some
quotations from the article so that you can get an idea of how fuckin' stupid these people are:
The Magers not only found an upscale home for less money [in Macomb County], they also got more time to enjoy
it. Tom Mager said a comparable house in Oakland would have meant a much longer commute.
"Traffic was just getting worse every year," he said.
The family has also discovered Lake St. Clair.
"There's something about the lake," Mager said. "I don't know what it does to people, but they seem to be friendlier
than anyplace else I've gone."
a.) there's that overused kitschified and worshiped word 'upscale' again. What the hell does that mean? Essentially,
it is the word politicos, developers, journalists, and comatose suburbanites like to use to describe their sordid cess pool
of an environment--the wasteland that they've been duped into believing is luxurious and entitled.
b.) no shit traffic was just getting worse every year. That's what happens when assholes like you move to the middle of cornfields and have to drive every-fuckin'-where. It's what happens in a car-dependent society that values
the freedom to drive absolutely positively everywhere--anywhere--anybody feels they have the God-given
right to drive. People that make traffic overload to an absurd degree possible are called property rights advocates (maniacs).
c.) the thing about the Lake that's so charming is that people who live on it realize that they have something in their
lives that nobody else in the suburban junkscape has--something worth preserving and caring for; something that makes
their experience fulfilling and unique--not totally mundane, anonymous, trite, insignificant, inconsequential, comatose,
sordid, vacuous, and lame like the four million people populating the I-74/I-96/I-94 corridors outside of one of America's
formerly most productive and successful cities.
Well, more rant later--I never got to what I did with a month of no internet access.
Chanson du jour: Lauryn Hill, Adam Lives in Theory
to the Island in the detail that I would like, but I will say that it was blissful. The Island is a model for the economy
of a post-imperial America: localized economy, interdependent services, community dependency, and growth control.
Beaver Island is what towns across the country should resemble. No wastelands of sprawl with the charm of a Nazi
death camp, no warehouses of surplus crap manufactured by toiling laborers in countries most Americans are too
dumb to know of, no grease sponge strip restaurants, no chain lube-n-go auto clinics, no desolate pods of vinyl and
wallboard McHouses in the scorching sun and clay front yards incomprehensively twisting their way through former
farms and productive rural land, and finally--ulitmately, miraculously--no carcinogenic floodwater of automobiles
overwhelming infrastructure. People there don't use their cars to joyride between big box merchandise emporiums
and their estate community.
I saw the aurora borealis three times, the Milky Way every night, gazed at the moon through a 4mm lens on a 144mm
telescope--close enough to watch it move out of view in just a few seconds, I went horseback riding, ate smelt and
whitefish almost every day caught from the Lake that morning, I hiked through environments unique in the world,
and best of all, I was secluded--utterly secluded--from the frivolity of this doped up modern world of ours.
To illustrate this frivolity, read this article in the Detroit Free Press from Tuesday, September 9, 2003:
Population swings from Oakland to Macomb
Neighboring county attracting residents with more home for the money, down-to-earth feel http://www.freep.com/news/locmac/move9_20030909.htm
The article is about the trend of people moving from the wasteland of sprawl outside of Detroit called Oakland
County to another, newer, blossoming wasteland of sprawl to the north called Macomb County. Here are some
quotations from the article so that you can get an idea of how fuckin' stupid these people are:
The Magers not only found an upscale home for less money [in Macomb County], they also got more time to enjoy
it. Tom Mager said a comparable house in Oakland would have meant a much longer commute.
"Traffic was just getting worse every year," he said.
The family has also discovered Lake St. Clair.
"There's something about the lake," Mager said. "I don't know what it does to people, but they seem to be friendlier
than anyplace else I've gone."
a.) there's that overused kitschified and worshiped word 'upscale' again. What the hell does that mean? Essentially,
it is the word politicos, developers, journalists, and comatose suburbanites like to use to describe their sordid cess pool
of an environment--the wasteland that they've been duped into believing is luxurious and entitled.
b.) no shit traffic was just getting worse every year. That's what happens when assholes like you move to the middle of cornfields and have to drive every-fuckin'-where. It's what happens in a car-dependent society that values
the freedom to drive absolutely positively everywhere--anywhere--anybody feels they have the God-given
right to drive. People that make traffic overload to an absurd degree possible are called property rights advocates (maniacs).
c.) the thing about the Lake that's so charming is that people who live on it realize that they have something in their
lives that nobody else in the suburban junkscape has--something worth preserving and caring for; something that makes
their experience fulfilling and unique--not totally mundane, anonymous, trite, insignificant, inconsequential, comatose,
sordid, vacuous, and lame like the four million people populating the I-74/I-96/I-94 corridors outside of one of America's
formerly most productive and successful cities.
Well, more rant later--I never got to what I did with a month of no internet access.
Chanson du jour: Lauryn Hill, Adam Lives in Theory
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Autocommunicative burden
The emotive cheese
I am begrieved by a loss of words, and can only think of pictures that I want to take, voices I want to record, music I
want to play, films I want to make, objects and places and faces and gestures and light and eyes and glances and
essences i want to record (we must come up with a better word than 'essence'). This is the autocommunicative
burden. What's more, there is only one person (or two, three?) that I want to reveal it all to. What happens when
that person is the object of one's own silence, and doesn't know the difference. It all becomes emotive cheese
because it all becomes selfish or something pop-sentimental like that. This is why I want to create--to serve others.
Any discussion about why we feel the need to create is a parody--it has become a cliche, disdainful, and absurd. I
really hate the world of artists and architects. I don't want that prize and I'm fed up with their discussions on the
meaning of art, why they would die if unable able to create, the reasons for expression and shit like that. It's
hollow, and I am fearful of that art world because it is all hollow by the same vanity. And it is lonely. So lonely is that
art world that so many become duped into. A melancholic wishes to keep his reasons to create to himself, and to God,
and to the person that still--still (can you believe it!?)--manages to invoke the emotive cheese. Then it becomes service
to that singular, remarkable one. The person, the persons, those fellows, thanes, companions, lovers, ....
Chanson du jour: Requiem for a Dream (Clint Mansell), Lux Aeterna
I am begrieved by a loss of words, and can only think of pictures that I want to take, voices I want to record, music I
want to play, films I want to make, objects and places and faces and gestures and light and eyes and glances and
essences i want to record (we must come up with a better word than 'essence'). This is the autocommunicative
burden. What's more, there is only one person (or two, three?) that I want to reveal it all to. What happens when
that person is the object of one's own silence, and doesn't know the difference. It all becomes emotive cheese
because it all becomes selfish or something pop-sentimental like that. This is why I want to create--to serve others.
Any discussion about why we feel the need to create is a parody--it has become a cliche, disdainful, and absurd. I
really hate the world of artists and architects. I don't want that prize and I'm fed up with their discussions on the
meaning of art, why they would die if unable able to create, the reasons for expression and shit like that. It's
hollow, and I am fearful of that art world because it is all hollow by the same vanity. And it is lonely. So lonely is that
art world that so many become duped into. A melancholic wishes to keep his reasons to create to himself, and to God,
and to the person that still--still (can you believe it!?)--manages to invoke the emotive cheese. Then it becomes service
to that singular, remarkable one. The person, the persons, those fellows, thanes, companions, lovers, ....
Chanson du jour: Requiem for a Dream (Clint Mansell), Lux Aeterna
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Land preservation in Michigan
Recently, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy released a summary of a report that assessed some $800 million
that the State of Michigan has spent since 1974 to preserve open land and protect it from development. Out of
the splendid assortment of the facts they reported on, clearly indicating that they missed the point entirely, the
one that pissed me off the most was their criticism of where the money was spent. And that was this: only 28.5
percent of these public funds was directed to preserve farms in high-growth counties. An extension of that
factoid is this: "Five of the 17 highest-growth counties — Livingston, Macomb, Midland, Oakland and St. Clair —
had zero enrollments in the farmland preservation program in 1997, 1998 and 1999." But what the hell do they
expect as a conservative think tank? The late nineties was a stoned orgy of reckless sprawl and natural resource
exploitation. What's ironic, and literary, is that the very people that were in the position to regulate where funds
for farm preservation were directed were the same property rights maniacs insisting on more and more sprawl.
It shouldn't be a surprise to anybody--particularly conservatives--that so few funds (28.5%)
were used for preservation in high-growth counties. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has no right to criticize
the program for this statistic, as it was the conservative platform that they absurdly defend that made the whole
thing so ineffective in the first place! No typical conservative in government would allow such a foolish and
misguided thing to occur; they didn't want to piss off their constituents and developer buddies in the staunchly
conservative suburbs who were racking the dough in just as fast and to the same horrible intensity that they
were chewing up the land to put up frickin' Wal-Marts and Jiffy Lubes and strip housing subdivisions for fertile
young accountant families. Preserving open space in such fast-growing areas would be crazy and self-defeating
for them! It's an arrogant trick for conservatives to scheme for this program's ineffectiveness and then point to it
as a programmatic flaw. But then again, who should be surprised? It's the same old crap that it always has been.
Chanson du jour: something angsty.
that the State of Michigan has spent since 1974 to preserve open land and protect it from development. Out of
the splendid assortment of the facts they reported on, clearly indicating that they missed the point entirely, the
one that pissed me off the most was their criticism of where the money was spent. And that was this: only 28.5
percent of these public funds was directed to preserve farms in high-growth counties. An extension of that
factoid is this: "Five of the 17 highest-growth counties — Livingston, Macomb, Midland, Oakland and St. Clair —
had zero enrollments in the farmland preservation program in 1997, 1998 and 1999." But what the hell do they
expect as a conservative think tank? The late nineties was a stoned orgy of reckless sprawl and natural resource
exploitation. What's ironic, and literary, is that the very people that were in the position to regulate where funds
for farm preservation were directed were the same property rights maniacs insisting on more and more sprawl.
It shouldn't be a surprise to anybody--particularly conservatives--that so few funds (28.5%)
were used for preservation in high-growth counties. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has no right to criticize
the program for this statistic, as it was the conservative platform that they absurdly defend that made the whole
thing so ineffective in the first place! No typical conservative in government would allow such a foolish and
misguided thing to occur; they didn't want to piss off their constituents and developer buddies in the staunchly
conservative suburbs who were racking the dough in just as fast and to the same horrible intensity that they
were chewing up the land to put up frickin' Wal-Marts and Jiffy Lubes and strip housing subdivisions for fertile
young accountant families. Preserving open space in such fast-growing areas would be crazy and self-defeating
for them! It's an arrogant trick for conservatives to scheme for this program's ineffectiveness and then point to it
as a programmatic flaw. But then again, who should be surprised? It's the same old crap that it always has been.
Chanson du jour: something angsty.
Monday, August 11, 2003
Lardass Americans
Storage bins for flab at the new west-side Taco Bell
Last Friday, the Lansing State Journal reported that "west-side Taco Bell patrons want more space."
Surprise, surprise. I can't decide if the restaurant's cramped or they just need more ass-room. Things like this
are exactly what make contemporary life in America so readily insipid. The west-side Lansing Taco Bell that the
article refers to is planning on building a bigger and better lard vat across the eight-lane sprawlscape
pseudo-freeway from its current location. Naturally, the plan features even more parking; even more parking
because there's no way on earth anybody could ever access a hepatitis spawnscape like Taco Bell in this nuclear winter of asphalt
and concrete and utility poles where fourth-rate businesses deposit themselves like they were hawkers waiting
at the gates of Hell. Anybody seen on foot in a sprawlscape like this would be assumed to be either a schizo or
tripped up on some haaaaaarrrd shit. I imagine that the only exception to this would be immigrant hotel maids
and kids from the projects wheelin' over on their bmx's to indulge in some foul goopy pigeon and muskrat meat
with diarhea bean sauce. And this is what it means that we're 'fighting for our freedom?' Damn--I'd much rather let 'the
terrorists' go giddy-high with bombs and planes on the sprawlscapes of America than strip search folks with dark
skin in the airports. And this way, they'd have a way to blow off all that insano angst. On a more realistic
and less needlessly cynical level, I just can't believe that the Lansing State Journal reports on nonsense like this.
Fighting for our Freedom, fighting to protect the American Way of Life
While the 'WAR' (oooooh!) is still going on, here's a reminder of what we're fighting to protect, lest we forget:
http://www.texasfreeway.com/houston/photos/i10w/i10w.shtml
Chanson du Jour: Sigur Ros, Untitled No. 5
Last Friday, the Lansing State Journal reported that "west-side Taco Bell patrons want more space."
Surprise, surprise. I can't decide if the restaurant's cramped or they just need more ass-room. Things like this
are exactly what make contemporary life in America so readily insipid. The west-side Lansing Taco Bell that the
article refers to is planning on building a bigger and better lard vat across the eight-lane sprawlscape
pseudo-freeway from its current location. Naturally, the plan features even more parking; even more parking
because there's no way on earth anybody could ever access a hepatitis spawnscape like Taco Bell in this nuclear winter of asphalt
and concrete and utility poles where fourth-rate businesses deposit themselves like they were hawkers waiting
at the gates of Hell. Anybody seen on foot in a sprawlscape like this would be assumed to be either a schizo or
tripped up on some haaaaaarrrd shit. I imagine that the only exception to this would be immigrant hotel maids
and kids from the projects wheelin' over on their bmx's to indulge in some foul goopy pigeon and muskrat meat
with diarhea bean sauce. And this is what it means that we're 'fighting for our freedom?' Damn--I'd much rather let 'the
terrorists' go giddy-high with bombs and planes on the sprawlscapes of America than strip search folks with dark
skin in the airports. And this way, they'd have a way to blow off all that insano angst. On a more realistic
and less needlessly cynical level, I just can't believe that the Lansing State Journal reports on nonsense like this.
Fighting for our Freedom, fighting to protect the American Way of Life
While the 'WAR' (oooooh!) is still going on, here's a reminder of what we're fighting to protect, lest we forget:
http://www.texasfreeway.com/houston/photos/i10w/i10w.shtml
Chanson du Jour: Sigur Ros, Untitled No. 5
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Christian Sociopolitical Paradigm
I'm too tired. This will simply have to be a commitment to write about it in the future.
(arbitrary hatred of Hillary Clinton,
abortion and gay marriages,
giving money to Gubment when faith should dictate,
Church's role in poverty and social issues,
arbitrary support for Dubya,
"but Dubya's a Christian!"
etc.)
In the meantime, check out this shizzit: the link below is to the website of the
"Preserving the American Dream of Mobility and Home Ownership" conference sponsored
by martini-sipping realtors, planners, developers, property rights maniacs, and
pseudo-patriots in Washington, DC last February. Notice: their
apparent idea of the American Dream is to be stuck in traffic on a multi-lane freeway,
inhaling carcinogens through the air conditioner (bad for the those realtors' botox lips):
http://www.ti.org/amdream.html
If any of you out there don't find this absolutely absurd, you're clowns.
Chanson du Jour (deux): Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi
(arbitrary hatred of Hillary Clinton,
abortion and gay marriages,
giving money to Gubment when faith should dictate,
Church's role in poverty and social issues,
arbitrary support for Dubya,
"but Dubya's a Christian!"
etc.)
In the meantime, check out this shizzit: the link below is to the website of the
"Preserving the American Dream of Mobility and Home Ownership" conference sponsored
by martini-sipping realtors, planners, developers, property rights maniacs, and
pseudo-patriots in Washington, DC last February. Notice: their
apparent idea of the American Dream is to be stuck in traffic on a multi-lane freeway,
inhaling carcinogens through the air conditioner (bad for the those realtors' botox lips):
http://www.ti.org/amdream.html
If any of you out there don't find this absolutely absurd, you're clowns.
Chanson du Jour (deux): Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi
Shrub's playtime in Iraq
When discussing the hoodwinked search for Saddam with the press today, Dubya offerred the following insight:
"All I know is we're on the hunt."
Exactly. Evidently, this is all Dubya knows or cares to know, and putting it in the terms of a children's game helps
him understand.
Chanson du Jour: Buffalo Springfield, For What it's Worth
"All I know is we're on the hunt."
Exactly. Evidently, this is all Dubya knows or cares to know, and putting it in the terms of a children's game helps
him understand.
Chanson du Jour: Buffalo Springfield, For What it's Worth
Thursday, July 24, 2003
The angst depot burns
I'm going to devote a good deal of commentary on this entry because the fire suddenly has everyone
talking on the rumors as to why it happened. 80% of the conversations I overhead on the street
this evening (and I spent a good three hours downtown at the fire and the area of its influence) were
about such rumors. That said:
The entire center of Ann Arbor is caked in smoke and even my house smells like a campfire. A very old
warehouse that until the winter housed many artists and vagrant youth was in the process of being
torn down when some of the old regulars torched what was left to bring visibility to their plight.
According to the first news reports, though, the fire wasn't planned. Therefore, I wonder if the rumor
is just typical Ann Arbor intrigue theory or if the local fire department just isn't in the know. I'm guessing
the latter.
I went downtown to photograph the fire after seeing a sulfur-colored smoke in the sky above Ann Street.
At the warehouse, the local angst population gathered with their ceremonial piercings and watched as
fire departments from three (that I know of) districts fought the fire. I ran into somebody in the group
that's been in the community for a good five years or so. She told me that when they were evicted to
make room for a new YMCA facility, nobody flinched. No press, no protest. Apparently, this pissed them
off. As a result, they figured that torching the place would bring the visibility they thought they were
entitled to. I'm guessing these are the same people that have been spraypainting those fabulous little
stencil pictures all around town, considering that the old warehouse was covered with them. And again,
the whole visibility thing.
Now I appreciate the literary quality of it all. It's melancholicly romantic, like Tchaikovsky or Sylvia Plath
or other pillars of dysfunction (who were amazing artists, nonetheless). The idea is ancient, like Roman
soldiers who would rather kill themselves than to return to their homes having been defeated. It's an
interesting story, except for a few things that make it all so ridiculous:
Firstly, Ann Arbor is the vanity capital of the Midwest. It tries so damn hard not to be. Everybody here
wears linen and protests for social justice and world peace and go to vegetarian restaurants, hand out
pamphlets on veganism, damn the man, rage against the machine, and devote their entire self-awareness
to grassroots campaigns that they like to think make a difference. Now that's all good and well, and I'm
encouraged by it, except that a) it isn't a feasible tactic in today's world; b) it's self-defeating, because the
causes that they patron are made mute by their relativism, not to mention the absense of a value system
or comprehensive world view that gives their actions and stance in the name of legitimate causes any meat;
c) most of them are extraordinary privileged kids who feel guilty; d) there's scarce dissenting viewpoint in
Ann Arbor. Thus, the vanity that Ann Arbor so brilliantly spews is the sort of full-circle elitist kind. And that
brings me to my first point: in a town like the Deuce, a stunt like this doesn't go very far, because
everybody's down with it in the first place.
Secondly, their angst over a YMCA is totally assinine. Now as a historic preservationist and an architecture
student, I want to see historic structures preserved in widespread ways as much as possible (sometimes,
in fact, I'm even maniacal about it). Certainly, it's a bummer to see a solid old structure that's become
a harmonious part of the city fabric to go. But I'm also interested in the greater vitality of the city, and a
huge part of that depends on civic and communal amenities and accessibility. I can empathize
with the angsty kids and the artists in their eviction. They lost what I understand to be a staple in their
devoted and close community, and that sucks. Further, it sucks that now artists have even less space to
occupy at reasonable costs and accessibility. But that's not enough. If they were a productive asset to the
city at large as a result of occupying their old warehouse--that is, as a unique result--than
I'd be damn pissed that a YMCA's going to take over. But they weren't, and just like everybody else in this
world, they don't have anything coming to them just because they live a certain lifestyle or adhere to certain
social standards. My point is, a YMCA will be a far--far--better asset to the community at large than a bunch
of frustrated angsty people who don't contribute to the community at large (there's that term again) at the
same scale that a YMCA could, or for that matter, a homeless shelter, museum, library, youth center, etc.
would be able to. That's why I say, build the friggin' Y and everyone can just suck it up.
Thirdly, the argument was made that the YMCA should not be investing so many millions of dollars in a city
that already has a decent facility and is of socio-economic status to afford youth programs and whatnot
without a Y facility. But it can be argued to some capacity that torching their land isn't exactly going to direct
YMCA funds towards communities who 'really' need programs. Think about the associated costs: how many
millions will the YMCA need to spend on resulting higher insurance premiums, extra demolition costs, extra
clean-up costs (not to mention environmental cleanup as a result of asbestos contamination, etc.), extra
security, construction delays, contract royalties, additional contracts associated with a severely altered
building program, etc, etc. Perhaps the YMCA as a whole can afford these costs overall, but on a local scale
financial burden of the type arson results in can kill a project all together. And then what's left?
No YMCA--no civic asset--and no space for artists. That is, the same artists who torched the
place to make a statement in the first place. Then nobody counts their loses, not even the artists.
Fourthly, this stunt will cost the city a lot of money. Demands on water utilities, the costs of operating 3+
fire departments simultaneously, overtime police and fire, ambulatory care, cleanup, railroad closings, road
closings, security, etc. Not to mention that fact that now the entire center of Ann Arbor is buried in smoke
thicker than most fog we get up here, and I wonder how many carcinogens are hanging in the air along
the busiest pedestrian zone in town. The Washington St. corridor was like a steam room. Now I have a
massive headache worthy of Motrin in excess of a few hundred miligrams, the entire town smells like we're
at summer camp (which, I admit, is kinda cool...a dream come true, really), and my eyes burn.
I guess after these four points, I'm seriously doubting if this liebestod was worth it. I mean, really worth it.
It's not like we're in the war-torn former Yugoslavia, now is it? It's not as if anybody's being seriously and
inhumanely oppressed, now is it? And it's not as though there was no other option, a life-and-death
situation, a morally permissible prompt, a civically responsible rationale, a genuine act of unfairness or
cheating, or Stormtroopers poised to arrest the angsty ones unless their precious warehouse that they didn't
own and wanted torn down anyway to clear way for their own pet project was burned down (???), now are
there? So suck it up!
Chanson du jour: Richie Havens, The Klan , again, to illustrate the need for socially responsible art that still makes an effective point. And,
to illustrate a cause that's actually worth caring for and fighting for.
talking on the rumors as to why it happened. 80% of the conversations I overhead on the street
this evening (and I spent a good three hours downtown at the fire and the area of its influence) were
about such rumors. That said:
The entire center of Ann Arbor is caked in smoke and even my house smells like a campfire. A very old
warehouse that until the winter housed many artists and vagrant youth was in the process of being
torn down when some of the old regulars torched what was left to bring visibility to their plight.
According to the first news reports, though, the fire wasn't planned. Therefore, I wonder if the rumor
is just typical Ann Arbor intrigue theory or if the local fire department just isn't in the know. I'm guessing
the latter.
I went downtown to photograph the fire after seeing a sulfur-colored smoke in the sky above Ann Street.
At the warehouse, the local angst population gathered with their ceremonial piercings and watched as
fire departments from three (that I know of) districts fought the fire. I ran into somebody in the group
that's been in the community for a good five years or so. She told me that when they were evicted to
make room for a new YMCA facility, nobody flinched. No press, no protest. Apparently, this pissed them
off. As a result, they figured that torching the place would bring the visibility they thought they were
entitled to. I'm guessing these are the same people that have been spraypainting those fabulous little
stencil pictures all around town, considering that the old warehouse was covered with them. And again,
the whole visibility thing.
Now I appreciate the literary quality of it all. It's melancholicly romantic, like Tchaikovsky or Sylvia Plath
or other pillars of dysfunction (who were amazing artists, nonetheless). The idea is ancient, like Roman
soldiers who would rather kill themselves than to return to their homes having been defeated. It's an
interesting story, except for a few things that make it all so ridiculous:
Firstly, Ann Arbor is the vanity capital of the Midwest. It tries so damn hard not to be. Everybody here
wears linen and protests for social justice and world peace and go to vegetarian restaurants, hand out
pamphlets on veganism, damn the man, rage against the machine, and devote their entire self-awareness
to grassroots campaigns that they like to think make a difference. Now that's all good and well, and I'm
encouraged by it, except that a) it isn't a feasible tactic in today's world; b) it's self-defeating, because the
causes that they patron are made mute by their relativism, not to mention the absense of a value system
or comprehensive world view that gives their actions and stance in the name of legitimate causes any meat;
c) most of them are extraordinary privileged kids who feel guilty; d) there's scarce dissenting viewpoint in
Ann Arbor. Thus, the vanity that Ann Arbor so brilliantly spews is the sort of full-circle elitist kind. And that
brings me to my first point: in a town like the Deuce, a stunt like this doesn't go very far, because
everybody's down with it in the first place.
Secondly, their angst over a YMCA is totally assinine. Now as a historic preservationist and an architecture
student, I want to see historic structures preserved in widespread ways as much as possible (sometimes,
in fact, I'm even maniacal about it). Certainly, it's a bummer to see a solid old structure that's become
a harmonious part of the city fabric to go. But I'm also interested in the greater vitality of the city, and a
huge part of that depends on civic and communal amenities and accessibility. I can empathize
with the angsty kids and the artists in their eviction. They lost what I understand to be a staple in their
devoted and close community, and that sucks. Further, it sucks that now artists have even less space to
occupy at reasonable costs and accessibility. But that's not enough. If they were a productive asset to the
city at large as a result of occupying their old warehouse--that is, as a unique result--than
I'd be damn pissed that a YMCA's going to take over. But they weren't, and just like everybody else in this
world, they don't have anything coming to them just because they live a certain lifestyle or adhere to certain
social standards. My point is, a YMCA will be a far--far--better asset to the community at large than a bunch
of frustrated angsty people who don't contribute to the community at large (there's that term again) at the
same scale that a YMCA could, or for that matter, a homeless shelter, museum, library, youth center, etc.
would be able to. That's why I say, build the friggin' Y and everyone can just suck it up.
Thirdly, the argument was made that the YMCA should not be investing so many millions of dollars in a city
that already has a decent facility and is of socio-economic status to afford youth programs and whatnot
without a Y facility. But it can be argued to some capacity that torching their land isn't exactly going to direct
YMCA funds towards communities who 'really' need programs. Think about the associated costs: how many
millions will the YMCA need to spend on resulting higher insurance premiums, extra demolition costs, extra
clean-up costs (not to mention environmental cleanup as a result of asbestos contamination, etc.), extra
security, construction delays, contract royalties, additional contracts associated with a severely altered
building program, etc, etc. Perhaps the YMCA as a whole can afford these costs overall, but on a local scale
financial burden of the type arson results in can kill a project all together. And then what's left?
No YMCA--no civic asset--and no space for artists. That is, the same artists who torched the
place to make a statement in the first place. Then nobody counts their loses, not even the artists.
Fourthly, this stunt will cost the city a lot of money. Demands on water utilities, the costs of operating 3+
fire departments simultaneously, overtime police and fire, ambulatory care, cleanup, railroad closings, road
closings, security, etc. Not to mention that fact that now the entire center of Ann Arbor is buried in smoke
thicker than most fog we get up here, and I wonder how many carcinogens are hanging in the air along
the busiest pedestrian zone in town. The Washington St. corridor was like a steam room. Now I have a
massive headache worthy of Motrin in excess of a few hundred miligrams, the entire town smells like we're
at summer camp (which, I admit, is kinda cool...a dream come true, really), and my eyes burn.
I guess after these four points, I'm seriously doubting if this liebestod was worth it. I mean, really worth it.
It's not like we're in the war-torn former Yugoslavia, now is it? It's not as if anybody's being seriously and
inhumanely oppressed, now is it? And it's not as though there was no other option, a life-and-death
situation, a morally permissible prompt, a civically responsible rationale, a genuine act of unfairness or
cheating, or Stormtroopers poised to arrest the angsty ones unless their precious warehouse that they didn't
own and wanted torn down anyway to clear way for their own pet project was burned down (???), now are
there? So suck it up!
Chanson du jour: Richie Havens, The Klan , again, to illustrate the need for socially responsible art that still makes an effective point. And,
to illustrate a cause that's actually worth caring for and fighting for.
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